


even though it hurts

by ErinNovelist



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Friendship/Love, Gen, Introspection, Shiro's Fun Year
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-09
Updated: 2017-07-09
Packaged: 2018-11-29 17:42:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,662
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11445828
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ErinNovelist/pseuds/ErinNovelist
Summary: Sometimes he made a list of ten things he missed—whether it was the desert, the Garrison mac-and-cheese, his old hover bike—it was always changing, always rearranging, like a puzzle that had no matching pieces. There was always something new he missed. But there was always one constant that never moved from that list, one he couldn’t bear to replace with something else, something he would always miss.Keith Kogane.





	even though it hurts

There wasn’t much he thought about while confined to that tiny prison cell aboard the Galran ship, trapped in the dark shadows of space and soft purple lights, desperate to soothe the ache in his chest whenever he remembered everything he’d lost (and could never regain). That was the fact of the matter. It was easier to pretend that there was nothing at all, no one who would miss him, nothing that he would miss, because otherwise he’d have to come to terms with the fact that there were things he could never get back, people he could never see, a home he could never return to, a world he could never… He liked to think that nothing existed _before_ , and there was only _now_ and the promise of a painful _after_.

Sometimes, though, he couldn’t help but think about it. Sometimes he made a list of ten things he missed—whether it was the desert, the Garrison mac-and-cheese, his old hover bike—it was always changing, always rearranging, like a puzzle that had no matching pieces. There was always something new he missed. But there was always one constant that never moved from that list, one he couldn’t bear to replace with something else, something he would always miss.

 _Keith Kogane_. The name stayed up at the top with the Holts, his parents, and Earth.

Keith had been happy when Shiro left—big purple eyes, wind-kissed cheeks and bright smiles, even though the lingering sadness shadowed his face. While he had hated to leave, the Kerberos mission was the opportunity of a lifetime, and Keith himself had told him he’d be stupid not to take it. So he’d accepted, boarded a rocket ship, and took off for Pluto, leaving his best friend alone on the ground.

It’d been hard for, Shiro recalled, knowing that Keith had absolutely no one. Despite the numerous efforts of Shiro and Matt, Keith refused to connect with people at the Garrison, other cadets his age or even older officers who wanted to look out for him. Shiro had never been sure why this was, and when asked about it, Keith had a tendency to dance around the subject.

“I’m afraid of them leaving,” Keith had told Shiro once when they’d backpacked up the mountains, backs pressed against cliffside one night as they watched the stars and made up names for the constellations they already knew. “It’s a thing with me. People always leave. I guess I’m just meant to be alone.”

Shiro pressed his lips into a thin line, staring at the meager fire the two had started. “I haven’t left yet.”

“Well you’re the only one who’s bothered to stick around,” Keith said, as if it were the explanation for everything. He turned his gaze back up at the stars, his mind rocketing galaxies away, and Shiro could only dream of hanging on. “I guess I stopped having that fear with you a while ago.”

Keith never elaborated, and Shiro didn’t see fit to ask. He did, however, make a solemn promise to always be there for his best friend, despite the obstacles that might threaten them, because no one should believe that they’re meant to be alone in life.

But then came Kerberos, and the capture, and the gladiator arena, and Shiro was hit with the cold, dead truth that he had left Keith in the end, and he could never go back.

Sometimes, in that tiny cell, Shiro dreamed about the things he missed. Along with the haunting memory of Matt’s screams and Commander Holt’s pain-filled eyes, the thought of his mother’s tears or his father’s breakdown, or the fear that the Galra might conquer Earth too, Keith came into his dreams, burning the dead, gray world with life and color with the vibrancy he raged across the sky with.

The dreams differed. Sometimes it was Keith at the Garrison, flicking switches in the simulator, with his nose crinkled in distaste as he scrutinized the preprogrammed routes before going off course on a risky, rocky success mission. Or the happy, breathless cadet who was brimming with curiosity as he learned more and more about the space and stars, always asking questions as he lounged on Shiro’s bed, face buried in a textbook, when they retreated to the older boy’s dorm to study. The mundane moments that haunted him during the nights were sometimes more painful that any torture that the Galra could inflict on him. They stirred up questions that he tried too hard not to think about.

Was Keith okay now? Did he think that Shiro was dead? Did he blame Shiro for leaving him? Did he graduate already or was he still causing Iverson shit? Did he find someone who could take Shiro’s place, and try to be there for him and help him grow into the man Shiro knew he could be? Did he find a family yet? Did he still think about Shiro? Did he wonder what happened? Did he try to look for Shiro? Did he miss him?

The questions only served to hurt him. With a shake of his head and a muted sob in the dark cell, he crammed them back into the corner of his mind, swearing to never shed light on them or spare them a single care. What good was it to look upon a past you could never return to?

It never worked though, despite how hard Shiro tried. Each time he was catapulted to that last time. The last memory he had of Keith, standing in the room before the Kerberos launch, laughing in a heartbreaking way that showed he was trying so hard not to cry, still all smiles and bright eyes as he gave Shiro a firm pat on the back and wished him well before giving him to the stars that they’d spent years yearning for.

“You’re gonna be great,” Keith told him, a twinkle in his eyes that Shiro tried to tell himself was happiness, not tears. “And by the time you’re back, I’m gonna break all your records.”

“You wish, Kogane,” Shiro said, ruffling his hair as he always did, the sound of Keith’s indignant squawks of protest like music to his ears. “I’ll be seeing you.”

Keith only managed one, final watery smile, and Shiro couldn’t bear to see anymore. He turned on his heel and headed for the ship, not even sparing a single glance back over his shoulder because it was already hard enough. What was the point of hurting even more?

Months later, as he orbited some nameless planet in a galaxy thousands of lightyears away from Earth, he felt the stinging burn of regret squirming under his skin like it was alive, clogging up in a thick lump at the back of his throat, and he wanted nothing more than to rid of the poison that tainted him. It hurt, it hurt, it hurt. This was why he couldn’t think about the things he missed because sometimes the pain was too much to handle. Shiro could deal with a lot of things—death, a missing limb, and experimentation—but he couldn’t face the things and people which made his numb heart throb, reminding him that he was still alive, and there was still a human under the Champion.

So he boxed up the memories and threw the list away, going back to the nothingness that lingered like smoke to a fire, staring at the blood-stained walls of that dark cell and tried to forget. It was easier to pretend that he came from nothing and was going nowhere, then reminisce on something and the universe of sadness and longing it birthed.

…

…

…But then…

…But then there was Ulaz, and Voltron, and an explosion in the pod bay before he went rocketing through space, past stars and planets, back to Earth, Solar System, Milky Way, local group, Virgo supercluster, observable universe—back _home_. The Garrison collected him, and he found that the time he swore he _was_ Nothing had _become_ Nothing, and then there was the cold prick of a needle,… and then he opened his eyes and suddenly everything else fell completely away.

 _Keith Kogane_.

He was standing there, right in front of him, sharp and grown in all the ways he remembered and all the ways he didn’t. For so long Shiro’d tried to shove Keith away in the back of his head, to collect dust and turn gray with age, but suddenly Keith had pushed himself to the forefront of Shiro’s mind through grit and force, burning hot and bright all on his own accord just as he’d done all his life.

“Keith,” he said in a voice so alien to himself, the sound grating in the back of his throat, but the name fell from his lips like something _familiar._

“Shiro,” the other man returned, and it sounded like coming home.

 

 

There wasn’t much he thought about while confined to the astral plane, trapped in darkness with stars and purple light staining the sky, desperate to soothe the ache in his chest whenever he remembered everything he’d lost again. While so long ago he’d tried to shove the memories and thoughts away, this time he knew he could regain them, so even though it hurt, he tried to picture what he missed.

He made a list of ten things he missed—whether it was Lance’s jacket, Hunk’s cooking, or Pidge’s robots—it was always changing, always expanding and growing bigger, because there was _so much_ he missed while trapped in the astral plane. One thing that hadn’t changed was the name at the top of his list: _Keith Kogane_.

For the first time in a long while, trapped in the astral plane, Shiro had hope, something that had never burned during his captivity with the Galra.

Because, while he missed Keith like a missing limb, he knew Keith missed him too.

And somehow… that made all the difference.


End file.
